The Devil You Know

Individuals differ in the extent to which they respond negatively to uncertainty. Although some individuals feel little discomfort when facing the unknown, those high in neuroticism find it aversive. We examined neurophysiological responses to uncertainty using an event-related potential framework. Participants completed a time-estimation task while their neural activity was recorded via electroencephalography. The feedbackrelated negativity (FRN), an evoked potential that peaks approximately 250 ms after the receipt of feedback information, was examined under conditions of positive, negative, and uncertain feedback. The magnitude of these responses was then analyzed in relation to individual differences in neuroticism. As expected, a larger FRN was observed after negative feedback than after positive feedback for all participants. For individuals who scored highly on trait neuroticism, however, uncertain feedback produced a larger neural response than did negative feedback. These results are discussed in terms of affective responses to uncertainty among neurotic individuals.

[1]  W. Swann,et al.  Why people self-verify. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  Jim Blascovich,et al.  Subjective, physiological, and behavioral effects of threat and challenge appraisal. , 1993 .

[3]  J. Lisman,et al.  Hippocampus as comparator: Role of the two input and two output systems of the hippocampus in selection and registration of information , 2001, Hippocampus.

[4]  R Todd Constable,et al.  Emotional conflict and neuroticism: personality-dependent activation in the amygdala and subgenual anterior cingulate. , 2007, Behavioral neuroscience.

[5]  Howard Berenbaum,et al.  Intolerance of uncertainty: Exploring its dimensionality and associations with need for cognitive closure, psychopathology, and personality. , 2008, Journal of anxiety disorders.

[6]  D. Tucker,et al.  Electrophysiological Responses to Errors and Feedback in the Process of Action Regulation , 2003, Psychological science.

[7]  C. L. Rusting,et al.  Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of emotional information: three conceptual frameworks. , 1998, Psychological bulletin.

[8]  L. R. Goldberg.  The structure of phenotypic personality traits. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[9]  J. H. Neely.  Semantic priming and retrieval from lexical memory: Roles of inhibitionless spreading activation and limited-capacity attention. , 1977 .

[10]  R. Sorrentino,et al.  The Uncertain Mind: Individual Differences in Facing the Unknown , 2002 .

[11]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  The neural basis of human error processing: reinforcement learning, dopamine, and the error-related negativity. , 2002, Psychological review.

[12]  Edward B. Royzman,et al.  Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion , 2001 .

[13]  J. Peterson,et al.  Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief , 1999 .

[14]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  Reward prediction error signals associated with a modified time estimation task. , 2007, Psychophysiology.

[15]  Jordan B Peterson,et al.  Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. , 2007, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  The neural basis of error detection: conflict monitoring and the error-related negativity. , 2004, Psychological review.

[17]  Sander Nieuwenhuis,et al.  Mediofrontal negativities in the absence of responding. , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[18]  M. Posner,et al.  Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[19]  Heikki Lyytinen,et al.  The Orienting Response in Information Processing , 2002 .

[20]  Jeff T. Larsen,et al.  The good, the bad and the neutral: Electrophysiological responses to feedback stimuli , 2006, Brain Research.

[21]  H. Critchley,et al.  Neural Activity in the Human Brain Relating to Uncertainty and Arousal during Anticipation , 2001, Neuron.

[22]  S. Dickerson,et al.  Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. , 2004, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  Richard S. Lazarus,et al.  Anticipatory stress and coping reactions under various conditions of uncertainty. , 1972, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  Matthew T. Sutherland,et al.  Recovery of correlated neuronal sources from EEG: The good and bad ways of using SOBI , 2005, NeuroImage.

[25]  Paul J. Whalen,et al.  The uncertainty of it all , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[26]  John A. Paulos.  A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market , 2003 .

[27]  P. Whalen.  Fear, Vigilance, and Ambiguity , 1998 .

[28]  J. Gray,et al.  Précis of The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system , 1982, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[29]  Adrian R. Willoughby,et al.  The Medial Frontal Cortex and the Rapid Processing of Monetary Gains and Losses , 2002, Science.

[30]  C. Braun,et al.  Event-Related Brain Potentials Following Incorrect Feedback in a Time-Estimation Task: Evidence for a Generic Neural System for Error Detection , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[31]  F. Castellanos,et al.  An fMRI examination of developmental differences in the neural correlates of uncertainty and decision-making. , 2006, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.